Lorcan Dempsey to Give Keynote About "The Inside-out Library" at BOBCATSSS Conference in Ankara, Turkey on 23 January

Lorcan Dempsey to Give Keynote About "The Inside-out Library" at BOBCATSSS Conference in Ankara, Turkey on 23 January

22 January 2013

In this keynote, Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC's Vice President, Research and Chief Strategist, will explain the differences between classic library "outside-in" model and the new "inside-out" model that may better serve today’s libraries in becoming learning organizations which can respond effectively to change. The classic library was built on an "outside-in" model: information materials were brought to the institution, and made available for use. This was appropriate in an age of information scarcity and high transaction costs. The only way effectively to interact with a large body of knowledge was to have it assembled close to the reader. Our environment has now changed. We live in an age of information abundance and transaction costs are reduced on the web. This makes the locally assembled collection less central. At the same time, institutions are generating new forms of data—research data, learning materials, preprints, videos, expertise profiles, etc.—which they wish to share with others. These need to be managed and disclosed, as an "inside-out" perspective becomes more interesting. This creates new questions for libraries. What is the best scale to do things at (locally or in the cloud)? How do you better understand the changing research, learning and information workflows of readers and become more engaged with them? How do you become a learning organization which can respond effectively to change?

The 21st annual BOBCATSSS Conference will take place in Ankara, Turkey, from 23-25 January 2013 and is organized by students from two universities: the Department of Information Management of Hacettepe University (TUR) and The Royal School of Library and Information Science (DEN). The theme of this year's conference is From Collections to Connections: Turning Libraries "Inside-out." The complete conference agenda is available online.

Lorcan's presentation will be posted on the OCLC Research website shortly after the conclusion of the conference.

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